You may have noticed that I’ve been talking about Snus a bit recently. It appears that I’m not the only one. Now, if you do a search on Aunty Beeb for mention of Snus, you won’t find very much from the last twelve months. In fact before the most recent (junk) article, the last time Aunty Beeb mentions Snus in an article dates back to May 2015 when there was quite a bit of a to do about a certain EU official and a teeny bit of bribery.

It is well-known that within the UK, each of the devolved areas have completely different priorities when it comes to “running” their little piece of the country. Wales tried, and spectacularly failed last year to bring in a new “Public Health (Wales) Bill” which would, in effect have severe negative consequences for Welsh vapers. That Bill, the demented offspring of one Mark Drakeford, was defeated at the final hurdle, not by the weight of evidence as it should have been long before it got to the final vote, but by the “cheap date” comment.

A victory is a victory. Whether you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning. In the case of Labour’s attempt to place a gagging order on the Welsh vaping community, we won.

It must be something about this time of year for all the idiotic anti-vaping, anti-nicotine or anti-anything, to crawl out from under whatever rock they’ve been hiding under and spout a tranche of utter bullshit before scuttling back to their safe space, complete with a shiny new grant to cook up more bullshit.(more…)

I guess it’s a case of “start as you mean to go on” regarding ‘scientific research’ on e-cigarettes. The very first paper I read in 2017 has this in its conclusion:

FDA is required to publicly display information about the quantities of chemicals in cigarettes and cigarette smoke in a way that is not misleading. This information, if paired with information from advertising or FDA disclosures indicating that e-cigarette aerosol contains lower amounts of those same chemicals, could have the unfortunate effect of encouraging smokers to become dual users or increase their existing dual use under the mistaken impression that they are significantly reducing their health risks.

That’s quite a statement to make. Here smokers, don’t go dual use tobacco and e-cigs ‘cos you’re not actually reducing the harms. What a way to start 2017.(more…)